The development of digital printing technologies by color plotters on textiles, leather, leather imitations, wood and alike materials, has made possible the printing of any kind of reproducible subject, whether an author's picture, a drawing, a logo or even a color photograph with a very high definition and chromatic rendition, through the acquisition of a digital image file from a scanner or from a source file or alike, an eventual graphical processing by common application programs for optimizing the driving of a color printing plotter. Moreover, digital printing is usable, within certain limits, even in presence of reliefs and/or depressions and may therefore be used even on manufactured clothing articles, in which hems, pockets, or sewings may be present in the area to be printed.
By contrast, it is practically impossible to digitally print by a common inkjet plotter color graphical compositions on dark or black supports. Another limitation of digital printing is the impossibility of forming features in relief or of introducing special effects such as for example: glitters, glues, expanded materials, in order to obtain peculiar esthetical effects in the drawing or graphical image to be reproduced on the printable support.
The traditional silk-screen printing of textiles and other supports has well-known limitations of resolution and chromatic rendering, having to reconcile these requirements with the use of a reasonable maximum number of silk-screen printing stencils needed for the sequential application of as many silk-screen printing inks or pastes, each application needing a drying step.
However, differently from digital printing, the traditional silk-screen printing technique permits the use of special inks or pigmented pastes and therefore the printing may be done on any surface even black without any problem. Moreover, glitters, glues, expanding materials may be included in the paste in order to produce special effects and decor features of the graphical composition been printed.
On a different account, the silk-screen printing technique barely tolerates the presence on the printing area of reliefs and/or depressions as may be produced by the presence of sewing lines, hems, pockets and the like in the printing area.
Notwithstanding the fact that for large quantities of articles to be printed with the same graphical composition, the silk-screen printing may yet be more economical than digital printing using an inkjet plotter, screen printing is burdened by problems and costs relating to the large amounts of waste it generates, such as waste fabrics, solvents, cleaning materials and above all by the large quantities of water that are consumed for washing with consequent costs of disposal, being classified as “special” waste because it contains dissolved or suspended metals, pigments, solvents and resins.